The Nuke is a power-up in the Zombies game mode. It kills every zombie currently in the map when a player gets it. When picked up, the screen will flash white and blind the player for about one second. In every map except the Call of Duty: World at War version of Nacht der Untoten, the Demonic Announcer will say "Kaboom", as the zombies are killed by the Nuke. Also, each player alive at the time will be given 400 points once it has killed all the remaining zombies. However, you will not obtain the 400 points in the Call of Duty: World at War version in Nacht Der Untoten. This power-up is valuable, since it gives them time to do necessary things before more zombies come, usually to revive a downed teammate. In Call of Duty: Black Ops, the player will not get any points for shooting or killing a zombie (in turn, the zombies cannot hurt the player) affected by the Nuke, meaning that it is advised to not take the power-up unless it's necessary, as it would waste earnable points.

The Nuke does not instantly kill all of the zombies; the effect seems to radiate outward, as zombies closer to the power up will die first. However, any zombies affected by the nuke still alive cannot hit the player.

Zombies can still drop power-ups if they die from a Nuke, including another Nuke.

On the iOS version, the player who gets the Nuke will be awarded 400 points, while the other players don't.

On the iOS version, the player will be awarded 400 points if the Nuke is collected on Nacht der Untoten, unlike the console versions where the player receives no points.

On the iOS version, if the player kills less than six zombies with a Nuke, they will not be awarded the 400 points.

On the Nintendo DS version, the nuke kills every zombie immediately and finishes the round no matter how many zombies there were.

In Call of Duty: Black Ops, zombies will still break down and pass through barriers when a Nuke is going off; attacking through barriers is the only way regular zombies can harm or down a player during this time, as they usually will not harm the player(s) until the Nuke is done killing zombies.